OKLAHOMA CITY – The top-seeded and No. 14-ranked Mid-America Christian University Evangels survived a hard-fought overtime battle with the fourth-seeded Southwestern Assemblies of God University Lions 98-92 to advance to their first-ever Sooner Athletic Conference tournament championship game tonight (Mar. 6) at Abe Lemons Arena on the campus of Oklahoma City University.
MACU will now face No. 13-ranked Wayland Baptist University tomorrow afternoon (Mar. 7) in the title game.
The Lions forced overtime when Jason Gentry made a running, desperation three with five seconds remaining to tie the score at 79-79.
Once in the extra session, Josh Smith scored to put the Evangels on top and Semar Farris then showed why he's the SAC Player of the Year by draining two big threes to stretch the lead to 87-81 with 2:20 left.
Jarius Wilson then hit two free throws to push the lead to 89-81 before Jonathan Walter scored and converted a turnover into another layup that brought the Lions within 89-85 at the 1:13 mark.
But once the Lions began to be forced to foul, the Evangels stepped up and hit 9-of-12 at the charity stripe over the final 1:10 to close out the win.
"The kids played with a lot of heart, even though we made mental mistakes we played with enough heart to win the ballgame," MACU head coach Willie Holley said.
The Evangels took the game over in the first half by concluding the period on a 14-4 run and continued the onslaught by scoring the first 11 points of the half to suddenly take a commanding 42-29 lead.
Wilson got things going with seven points and Brock Hunter added a three to fuel the charge.
Hunter would add another trey to extend to a 15-point edge before Gentry scored five points for the Lions to lead a run of seven straight to cut the deficit to eight.
The Evangels built the lead back to 13, but the Lions battled back and used a 14-6 run to come within 62-57.
The Evangels scored the first five points of the game on a quick three by Wilson and a breakaway from Farris in the first 1:30.
Gentry then caught fire for the Lions and scored 11 points to spark a 15-3 burst for a seven-point lead at the 13:19 mark of the opening half.
After the Evangels battled back to tie behind consecutive scores from Yuri Hager, the Lions gained some more separation with a 10-3 spurt to again lead by seven at 25-18 with 7:26 left in the period.
The Evangels then put the clamps down defensively, limiting the Lions to only 2-of-11 from the field the rest of the half.
That led to MACU outscoring the Lions 12-2 over the next six minutes to take a three-point lead and maintained a three-point margin of 32-29 at the break.
Farris led the Evangels with 22 points and made all four of his three-point attempts. Wilson scored a personal season-high of 21 points and also had nine rebounds. Runnels added 14 points and tied his career-high with a team-best 10 boards. Hunter also reached double-figure scoring with 13 points.
Gentry paced the Lions with 25 points, followed by 20 points from Marcus Price. Rishaad Alexander added 13, while Walter and Emmanuel Adoyi each scored 10. Adoyi also led SAGU with seven boards.
The Evangels controlled the interior to the tune of a 49-40 edge overall in rebounding.
MACU and WBU split the season series this year, with each squad winning on their home floor.
